Dan Lee Named Director of GRASP Lab

Daniel Lee, Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering, has been named Director of the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab, effective April 1, 2013. Lee replaces Kostas Daniilidis, Professor of Computer and Information Science, who has taken on the role of Associate Dean for Graduate Education at Penn Engineering.

In his announcement, Dean Eduardo D. Glandt noted, "The GRASP Lab is a jewel of Penn Engineering, one that integrates computer science, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering in a vibrant, collaborative environment that fosters interactions between students, research staff and faculty. It has grown into a $16 million research center with pioneering researchers building autonomous vehicles and robots, developing self-configuring humanoids, and making robot swarms a reality. Dan's energy, creativity and commitment to collaboration will drive GRASP to new heights."

Founded in 1979, GRASP is a premier research center focusing on fundamental research in robotics, vision, perception, control, automation and learning.

Lee received his Ph.D. in condensed matter physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and spent six years with Bell Laboratories before joining Penn in 2001. Drawing from the ways in which biological systems compute and learn, Lee and his lab look at computational neuroscience models and theoretical foundations of machine learning algorithms to construct real-time intelligent robotic systems, with an ultimate goal of designing machines that understand what we want them to do.